1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a group communication method for a wireless information device. The term ‘wireless information device’ used in this patent specification should be expansively construed to cover any kind of device with two way wireless information capabilities and includes without limitation radio telephones, smart phones, communicators, personal computers, computers and application specific devices. It includes devices able to communicate in any manner over any kind of network, such as GSM or UMTS, CDMA and WCDMA mobile radio, Bluetooth, 802.11, IrDA etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The convergence of communications and computing is delivering a new generation of wireless information devices, often referred to as smart phones or communicators. The most capable of these devices utilise operating systems such as the Symbian OS™ operating system from Symbian Limited of the United Kingdom. Wireless information devices based on the Symbian OS platform, are ‘smarter’ than current generation GSM phones in being able to offer multiple, advanced, robust client based applications. For example, current designs of communicators based on the Symbian OS platform include all of the applications found on a fully featured PDA, such as a contacts manager, messaging application, word processor, spreadsheet, synchronisation etc.
Mobile telephones have traditionally been regarded as tools which enable one to one voice communication. Desktop telephones are also predominantly used also for one to one voice communication, although conferencing in several call recipients is possible. Conference calling is also possible with current generation GSM mobile telephones, but the process is slow and awkward. In particular, it requires one party (a ‘chairperson’) to initiate all calls, place people on hold whilst new participants are called and join all participants into the conference call. Further, only the chairperson has an overview of the status of the entire conference call, so that participants are often, at the end of a conference call, left wondering whether the call is still on-going and if so, who can still hear them. There is a proliferation of different text based messaging systems which allow members of a groups to communicate with one another. But each system has some weakness—and in particular, no single system fully and successfully accommodates the unique characteristics of communicating between groups of mobile users.